WHAT IF OBAMA HAD WON THE ELECTION?

In the wee hours of election night last year, the promise of change did indeed seem possible until Senator John McCain’s stunning last-minute surprise upset. While some were rightfully suspicious of the results, the McCain camp explained their triumph as ”the unpolled Americans came out in force and expressed their preference in the privacy of the poll booth rather than risk being called ‘racist’.“
After President McCain’s first 200 days, filled with angst, turmoil, and more of the same, I have decided to speculate on what America would be like today had Senator Obama won the election which so many assumed he would.
First of all, there is no way an Obama administration would have turned the economy into shambles with a massive bank bailout. ”His populist voter base would never stand for it,“ I wrote just a few short months ago. “Obama stands for change we can believe in, and this is far from it.” Senator Obama announced his alternative, which was greeted with huge enthusiasm, according to the 86% of Americans who “strongly approved” of his plan to pay off all consumer credit cards instead of money going directly to financial institutions. “My plan would relieve Americans of onerous debt while still providing lenders with plenty of profit, not to mention a real stimulus for consumers to spend again, thus creating jobs for American workers, given my stipulation that all new credit card expenditures be spent within the United States for American cars, American products, and American vacation destinations.”
Vice-President Palin, in one of her numerous gaffes since taking office, denounced Obama as “on the wrong side of the financial equation, like reparation for slavery there should be no free lunch!”
President McCain’s continuation of the Cheney-Bush foreign policy agenda is surely something that an Obama Administration would not accept. While admitting “it takes some time to change the direction of a mighty cruise ship, but I am committed to finalizing our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and repairing our image with the rest of the world”. Likewise, President McCain’s continued unconditional support of Israel would be counter to a President Obama’s promise to strive for peace and a moratorium on settlements and saber-rattling toward Iran. McCain’s celebrated taunt to Iran regarding their supposed nuclear weapons program – “bring it on!” – would never be countenanced by a moderate Obama Administration where negotiation would be favored over confrontation.
Likewise, McCain’s confusing health care initiatives, which are considered by most Obama supporters as more profit for the private sector, would never be tabled by an Obama administration. Obama won overwhelming praise for his much simpler, more clearly defined health care plan – “Medicare for All.”

Finally, America today would not be so polarized. As 250,000 people marched on Washington last week, with countless taser arrests, aerial surveillance, and addition of thousands of innocent names to the ever-expanding terror watch list, Senator Obama said “the First Amendment is the founding principle of the Bill of Rights and cannot be trampled by government.”
Clearly had Senator Obama won the election, America would be a different, more benign place with a respect for the people and not for the oligarchy that the McCain Administration considers its constituency.
Alas, in the words of the late Robert F. Kennedy, “there are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

Joe Bodolai is a comedy writer and political satirist living in Santa Monica, California.